Bruce Pascoe, a Bunurong man, is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative of southern Victoria. He has combined writing fiction and non-fiction with a career as a successful publisher and has been the director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission. He has also worked as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, farm fence contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archeological site worker and editor.
His Fox series of novels were partially set in the Indonesian province Irian Jaya (West Papua) and his interest in the area was furthered in his Master of Arts from Griffith University titled 'Liberal and Interventionist Economic Policies: The Case of Indonesia' (1994). A member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative, he edited school readers on the history and language of the Wathaurong people, demonstrating his interest in indigenous language retrieval and teaching. He has spoken at conferences on Aboriginal culture and edited several anthologies and translations of Australian stories.
By editing and publishing Australian Short Stories (1982-1998), a quarterly journal of short fiction, Pascoe contributed greatly to Australian literature. Publishing experimental and traditional short stories by established writers and enabling new writers to demonstrate their potential, the journal continued under the editorship of Howard Firkin at Moolton Press until 2000. Pascoe has run Pascoe Publishing and Seaglass Books with his wife Lyn Harwood.
